Colorful Softies??what Kind?????????

[tent-tacal]

ok,apparently i can only have soft corals in my 55g because of the meeger lighting.i dont really see me having the colors i desire in my reef with just soft corals.are there any soft corals i can have that would still loook amazing?as close to a hard coral tank COLORS as possible.i cant get my t-5's yet but i will in a year or so(O MY GOD I CANT WAIT!)also,im thinking of adding extra actinics,does this make a differance in any way?

[ihavtats29]

what kind of lighting do you have right now?

[Michael]

thats the $64000 question there, what colourful soft corals, well they are hard to find, i have some blue mushrooms which look really blue and some yellow button polyps, however around here where i am most soft corals are creamy/white or brown, they are about but hard to find, as for the lighting a mix of marine white and marine blue will make the scene look attractive, but obviously the more light output the better it will all look, not sure what your set up is but it sounds like you may struggle with basic tubes to be honest, good luck anyhow hope it looks stunning when done

[tent-tacal]

heres the light im getting on saturday

[tent-tacal]

the previous owner just changed the bulbs 2 months ago and told me she kept only soft corals.she recently(2weeks ago) upgraded to a 180g with halides to keep hard corals as well.

[Michael]

ah-yes, i remember seeing those pics before, and at the time thought they looked ok, well i think i did, then Tswifty8 showed me a link to them and between us we thought they didnt look up to much, but hey look if your strapped for cash and want to try them then do so, however you will probably learn quite quickly that lighting costs serious money for marines, ive spent over £200.00 on my t5s which is about $400.00 dollars, but its worth it in the end, as i have said before though the very best of luck to you hope it goes well for you

[pledosophy]

I would look at:

mushrooms
zoa's
gorgs
some leathers (like green polyp toadstool)
GSP
sun corals
xenia

That would give you a pretty nice mix. IMO I think you could keep some LPS on the upper portion of the tank, that would open up a world of possibility for you.

[ihavtats29]

i had the same lights on a 55 gal current usa dual satilite 4x 65 watt pc's you can keep just about any soft corals zoo's , blasto's , gsp, also you will be fine with lps corals, torch , hammer, frogspawn, and some lower light requiring sps at the top of your live rock. here are some pics of my old 55 gal with those lights













there are also some more pice if you click on the little red house, the one sps i kept i was experimenting with to see how it would do it seemed to do just fine with a great growth rate

[tent-tacal]

man you guys are awesome!!thanks for the responses!

[tent-tacal]

even with my "crappy lighting" will i get good purple coralline on rocks and glass?i wouldnt mind the colorless coral as much if i had alot of purple in there.

[MinnFish]

Lighting alone will not give you coralline algae. Your water parameters need to be adjusted and maintain cal, alk, mag to start and grow coralline algae. Please, no purple up (waste of money). Good luck.

[otrlynn]

Originally posted by tent-tacal
even with my "crappy lighting" will i get good purple coralline on rocks and glass?i wouldnt mind the colorless coral as much if i had alot of purple in there.

To answer your question, you have plenty of light for the rocks to develop coralline algae. It will help of you can get a small piece of rock that already has some on there. I have read that you can take a razor blade and scrape off some and let it circulate around in the tank, sort of "seeding" the other rock. I have never tried that but have seen it suggested here on RC. My experience is that some rocks quickly develop coralline and some take a long time. I don't know what the critical factor is since all the rock is in the same environment. However, don't expect instant purple rocks; I would say it develops over a period of months, not weeks. Regarding your lights, I would stick with softies, zoanthids, and some of the easier LPS. There is a forum on RC for "Soft Coral Keepers" and I bet you could get more ideas or tank pics from members. You will need to maintain good water parameters to be successful with coral.

[abulgin]

I have seen some beautiful tanks that contained only mushrooms. So many colors/varieties.

[Amoore311]

There are some crazy color morphs of mushrooms out there. You can do some nice things with a bunch of different colors.

Sun coral is cool also, but it's a pain in the but to get it to come out in the day time. Dendrophyllia is expensive ($60/Polyp) , they are at least twice the size of sun coral though. They are also out all day long.

You can snag 1 or a couple polyps of dendro and grow that out as well. Those are completely non-photosynthetic though, so they require supplemental feedings.

Button Polyps and GSP would do fine in your tank as well. I don't have any experience w/ Leathers, I'm more of an LPS guy, but I'm sure there are some that would do fine in your tank as well.

[jettster]

+1 on softies and lps mine are doing good on compact florence but if you can swing it t5 are the way to go

[tent-tacal]

would this coral do good in my reeftank? http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...59&pcatid=2759

[sassafrass]

Yes but for almost $80 an inch that is a rip off !! Search the area for reef clubs you could easily get a larger piece for $20
Lee

[kimm]

Hi ya'll, I have not check in in a long time. Anyhow...what kind of lights are those? I have a mostly softy tank except for my hitchiker acro and a small red monti, that are growing nicely. I only run pc's.

[ihavtats29]

it's a current usa dual satilite 4) 65 watt pc's you can get cheap replacement bulbs from this link

http://stores.ebay.com/aquaristiksto...14400234QQtZkm

ive used them and had nothing but great results

[kimm]

on what size tank? I run 4X110 watt pc in a 75G. I have an anemone, a clam, monti, and an acro

[ihavtats29]

Colorful Softies??what Kind?????????

[ihavtats29]

oops didnt work 55 gal if you read the thread

[ihavtats29]

i wouldnt keep a clam under anything but mh lighting they require very intence lighting